{"id":260,"date":"2010-12-22T09:27:14","date_gmt":"2010-12-22T09:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.agilityfeat.com\/?p=47"},"modified":"2010-12-22T09:27:14","modified_gmt":"2010-12-22T09:27:14","slug":"fixed-price-agile-oil-and-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/34.200.113.64\/en\/blog\/2010\/12\/fixed-price-agile-oil-and-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Fixed Price Agile – Oil and Water?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Have you ever heard that oil and water don\u2019t mix?\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty common knowledge that oil will float on top of water and the substances will not mix together.\u00a0 This simple chemistry is easy to demonstrate, and most of us learned it in elementary school science.<\/p>\n

In the software development world, we also tend to assume that certain types of projects can\u2019t be mixed together.\u00a0 Agile and Fixed Price Contracts for example.\u00a0 The reasons are probably already clear to you,\u00a0but\u00a0I’ll briefly mention some reasons they are in conflict.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Agile discourages nitpicking and micromanaging of developers, and constant tracking of hours and holding teams to a budget.\u00a0 Instead of committing to a set feature list for 6 months from now, Agile methods encourage us to only make commitments one iteration at a time, and then to be willing to completely change direction in the next iteration based on what we learned about our customer\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n

Most fixed price contracts rely on those types of interactions, and when the budget gets spent and deadlines draw near, teams are expected to work weekends for free in order to make up the time.\u00a0 And the client wants to know exactly what they are going to get, when they will get it, and they are used to holding consultant\u2019s feet to the fire and shifting all risk to them.<\/p>\n

Sounds like an impossible match doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 But there are a couple ways you can mix agile and fixed price, just like mixing oil and water.<\/p>\n

The simplest way to mix oil and water is to simply stir it.\u00a0 Stir fast enough, and the oil and water will mix to some degree.\u00a0 Tell your development team that you are doing Agile, and micro manage their hours and make them work weekends, and you can sort of get Agile and fixed price to work together.<\/p>\n

But as soon as you stop stirring, the oil and water separate again.\u00a0 And you can\u2019t keep stirring forever.\u00a0 The oil and water is still unstable even when you stir it, and will still separate.\u00a0 Likewise, just saying you are Agile when really you are doing a traditional top down fixed price contract is not sustainable either.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very hard to get oil and water to mix permanently, but if you apply an emulsifier, you can create a more stable solution that you don\u2019t have to constantly stir.\u00a0 For example, vinaigrette dressings combine oil and vinegar by using an emulsifier like egg yolks, mustard, or honey.\u00a0 Sure, you will still have to shake the bottle occasionally, but you don\u2019t have to constantly stir it throughout dinner.<\/p>\n

Because Agile and Fixed Price Contracts don\u2019t naturally fit together, we have to apply an emulsifier to them so we have at least a chance of success.\u00a0 Instead of egg yolks, our emulsifiers will be things like conservative estimation and strong communication techniques.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m looking forward to the webinar I’m doing\u00a0in January on Fixed Price Agile<\/a>\u00a0and sharing what I\u2019ve learned about doing profitable fixed price agile work.\u00a0 We\u2019ll talk about strategies to emulsify two seemingly unmixable things, so that you are not constantly shaking down your teams and clients to try and achieve the impossible.\u00a0 The webinar is free, so I encourage you to sign up<\/a>!<\/p>\n

In the meantime, feel free to contact me at 434 996 5226 or Arin@AgilityFeat.com<\/a> if I can be of assistance to your Agile teams.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever heard that oil and water don\u2019t mix?\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty common knowledge that oil will float on top of water and the substances will not mix together.\u00a0 This simple chemistry is easy to demonstrate, and most of us learned it in elementary school science. In the software development world, we also tend to […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5,8],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","yoast_head":"\nFixed Price Agile - Oil and Water? - AgilityFeat Panama Software Test Center<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/agilityfeatpanama.com\/en\/blog\/2010\/12\/fixed-price-agile-oil-and-water\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fixed Price Agile - Oil and Water? - AgilityFeat Panama Software Test Center\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Have you ever heard that oil and water don\u2019t mix?\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty common knowledge that oil will float on top of water and the substances will not mix together.\u00a0 This simple chemistry is easy to demonstrate, and most of us learned it in elementary school science. 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